Sam Maguire has announced that he will be stepping down as president of YUSU at the end of the academic year.
The announcement came in a recent blog post drawing attention to the upcoming YUSU elections, which take place next term.
Maguire stated that he wished to go travelling next year so would not be running for a second term as President, a role he described as “one of the best jobs in the world.”
He also used the post to call for greater diversity amongst Presidential candidates, using an infographic from a previous Vision article to highlight the comparatively small number of female candidates that have ran for the position in the past.
The lack of mature, international and postgraduate students running for Sabbatical roles was also noted.
He stated “Putting it frankly us Sabbs are normally white and middle class and this isn’t fully representative of the demographics of our membership.
“So to change that I encourage people from any and every background to run and if you feel like there is a barrier stopping you from running for a role then come and talk to us!
“We should have a set of candidates for every position which reflects our student body.”
For those would-be leaders out there who are looking to fill Maguire’s shoes, nominations open on the 5th January.
Couldn’t hack it. Another well-meaning person worn into the ground by the stifling, conservative union bureaucracy, most obvious from the way he rolled over for the NUS by cancelling the demo coaches. He’s looked stressed as fuck since getting the job, though, to be fair. And he’s still a million times better than that Tory arsehole Whitmore.
Keep up at the back, Vision.
Everyone else knew this months ago.
If he thinks being the president of YUSU is the ‘best job in the world’ then he needs to get out more and actually experience life. Maybe some travelling will make him less of a loser.
Another CV politician like all the rest.
The guy obviously doesn’t think it’s the best job in the world, or he’d be running again.
Despite the fact he’s been pretty stressed doesn’t mean he’s not doing great job and from the looks of it, he’s actually having a positive long term effect to the union.
Hard shoes to fill.
Armitage Shanks is right. YUSU is not run by students – it is run by staff; it is not run for students – it is run for the organisation itself. Student officers are no more than good marketing tool for the organisation. Sam tried doing a few things (e.g. making life easier for JCRC) and failed whenever these went against the interests of YUSU beurocracy. My impression of him has always been as an intensely decent and just a little bit naive person who is suffocated by YUSU staff and a couple of ‘hacks’. He lacks cynicism to fight beurocracy (YUSU and Uni) effectively and is too nice to tell hacks to STFU.